On the road: 2016 Subaru Crosstrek

October 12, 2016

Transcript

The Subaru's Crosstrek goes right down the smoke stack of the biggest trend in automotive right now -- compact crossovers.
They are stealing share from all kind of more [UNKNOWN] passenger cars, yet they have to have utility cred.
[NOISE] And this guy would seem to have it all day long.
It's compact on the outside, yet spacious on the inside with a very configurable useable rear cargo area.
It's got all-wheel drive but doesn't kill you with all-wheel driveness.
You don't need to be a four-wheel drive wonk to get the most out of it.
And unlike some Subarus that look too much like dad jeans This has got a nice, crisp, urban flare.
Now aside from this revised face, slightly freshened for the 16 model year, this car hasn't really changed since it's inception.
You know the look and it's kind of this jaunty, compact, upright little thing with some nice sharp creases around it.
Honestly it's about the coolest looking thing in the Subaru lineup this side of a BRZ.
Now of course if you've seen the Subaru TV commercial you know what they do, they beat you over the head with two things.
One, love.
Okay we'll leave that aside.
The other one is, superlative safety.
And you know what?
They've earned that one.
If you look at the IIHS safety ratings, the Crosstrek gets close to a perfect score and a virtual tie with the Mazda CX-3, which also earned the top safety pick bag.
These are good little cars to be in when a big car veers your way.
I like that vault like sound that Subaru doors make, they don't weigh a damn thing but they sure sound good.
Now part of that really high safety rating I talked about, comes right up here.
These are the dual stereo colored cameras that make up One of the key components of the eyesight system.
What this camera system sees helps power really good adaptive cruise control, lane departure detection as well as full [UNKNOWN] collision and warning braking.
And not only is it one of the best systems in the business, it's really a good value as we're gonna learn.
The price in segment later.
All around here are very sharp displays are really crisp, very well layed out instrument panel.
Nothing fancy, except for that silly little MPG gauge that will tell you, pretty close to nothing.
And you got very rapid touch response which I really appreciate.
But when I'm on the road, I don't to be fasting around looking down twice to see.
If it understood what I touched.
Just do it.
Subarus used to known for very small, grainy, crunchy displays.
This is a nice, spacious, very beautifully rendered map interface.
It still is automotive navigation Please say a command.
A voice command is usually frustrating, occasionally great, you're just gonna want to use your phone on a windshield mount.
Notice there is no Android auto or carplay.
There's the 2017 Impreza that has those but not here in the cross trek yet.
StarLink is gonna bring you their telematics system.
Aha of course brings together all kinds of different services from podcast to Facebook updates to streaming radio.
And up here is one little, just about always be great out for most of you, MirrorLink which is another technology to project your phone on the screen It supports more phones now that it used to but not my Nexus 6P and not any iPhone.
And what I would normally give you a tour of the various drive controls in this car and there's not much to talk about.
You have a steering wheel, two pedals And a gear selector.
There's no sport mode button, there's no economy mode button, there's no fiddlly-do-hickeys for off-road terrain mode, there's no indication at all that this car is all-whell drive.
Subaru has admirable restraint.
For people who just want to get in the car and have it figure things out.
[MUSIC]
Classic Subey story in here.
A two-liter flat four, no turbo.
Look at how low and flat that guy is.
This isn't even engine, this is just plastic intake.
You gotta go another six inches to get to some metal.
That's one of the nice things about the Boxer engine, up front here.
And the flatness of symmetrical all-wheel drive carries that theme on through the rest of the car as well.
148 horsepower and 145 foot/pounds of torque.
This is pretty modest stuff, to be honest.
And in this trim level, we can only get a continuously variable transmission.
There is a five-speed on other crosstrek trims Look at that oil filter.
Does anybody make an oil filter easier to get to?
I just want to change the oil just because it's there.
One of the first delightful things about this car you notice right away is really good ride quality.
Especially for something that doesn't way a whole lot And has high ground clearance 8.7 inches or so but it never feels tippy and nothing harsh or cheap about it, I like that.
The next you notice about this car is unfortunately this transmission, this continuously variable transmission that is just too variable.
There are better ones on the market, let's put it that way.
This is like an early one, it feels like it's slippery and Revving up and down in only partial relationship to vehicle speed.
It takes what is already a pretty modest engine, and makes it feel modester, that's never good.
And as I mentioned a minute ago there are no controls, or buttons, or switches, or anything for the all-wheel drive, it just kicks in when it needs to.
Now note there are two different versions of the all wheel drive.
In a manual transmission version, all it will do is buy us power between the front and rear sets of wheels so front to back, starting with a default of 50/50.
In an automatic transmission car or CVT like we have, it will also do torque splitting so front to back can also be varied by left and right.
To more intelligently put the Touring where it belongs so it is a better, more sophisticated powertrain overall, it's just that this transmission sucks.
Okay now pricing our Crosstrek, this is the top of the line, the limited, or at about twenty six thousand dollars delivered, one option, package twenty three they call it.
A little under three grand, but it's a good deal.
A moon roof comes with that, navigation is added to the seven inch screen, three year updates to the map by the way, keyless access, push-button start and that excellent eyesight driver-assist technology.
So all-in we're pushing about $29,000 on On this guy, but I'm not gonna buy a Limited anyway because I can only get the CVT and that's a deal-breaker for me on this car.
I'm going to go down one level to what they call the Premium.
I can get that with a five-speed but I'm going to have to bring a handkerchief because I'm going to shed tears for the fact that I cannot get the eyesight technology.
But I'd rather have a car that I enjoy driving a little more than one that helps me [UNKNOWN].
[MUSIC]
More cars driven CNET style.
Standing by now at CNET on cars dot com.
Click on the road.
[MUSIC]